Temporary water woes possible in region as NYC projects begin

TOWN OF NEWBURGH — A bare hillside along Route 9W is one of the first signs of nearly $1.7 billion in spending New York City has in store for its water supply.

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By MICHAEL RANDALL

recordonline.com

By MICHAEL RANDALL

Posted May. 13, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By MICHAEL RANDALL
Posted May. 13, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

TOWN OF NEWBURGH — A bare hillside along Route 9W is one of the first signs of nearly $1.7 billion in spending New York City has in store for its water supply.

And more than 120,000 residents of the mid-Hudson ought to be paying close attention: It's their drinking water at stake in the long run.

After more than a decade of planning, the physical work has begun on two of three long-range projects for the city's water system.

The tally is:

-- $1.5 billion to construct a bypass tunnel to allow repair of the Delaware Aqueduct. The key problems areas are Wawarsing and Roseton.

-- $138 million to strip the Catskill Aqueduct of a film which has built up over the years.

-- $21 million for an "interconnect" of the two massive tunnels in the Town of Gardiner in Ulster County.

The biggest of the three projects in terms of scope and cost will address the long-standing problems of leaks in the Delaware Aqueduct's Rondout West Branch tunnel

An estimated 35 million gallons a day is lost through the leaks at those locations, said New York City Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Adam Bosch.

The $1.5 billion project (that cost estimate includes some work to be done in Queens) includes building a 3.5-mile bypass tunnel from Newburgh to the Town of Wappinger in Dutchess County, which will involve tunneling under the Hudson River.

The work will require shutting down the aqueduct for six to 10 months starting in October 2021, according to the current schedule.

The Town of Newburgh's backup supply during that shutdown will involve a project to connect the water supplies of the town and city of Newburgh and the Town of New Windsor. Officials there say details are still being worked out.

The City of Newburgh has its own main water supply in Washington Lake, and a backup supply in Brown's Pond, also known as Silver Stream Reservoir. The city has long had an emergency tap of New York City's Catskill Aqueduct. That aqueduct is New Windsor's main supply.

Bosch said the agency has agreed to pay the cost of the interconnection.

"The amount is still uncertain," he said.

Orange County Planning Commissioner David Church said a plan for the project should be public either later this month, or sometime next month.

The county, through its water authority, has facilitated talks between the three municipalities, but Church said the county's role going forward remains unclear.

The project, which received a $450,000 state grant for design and engineering, was originally recommended by a study as a way to reduce the towns' dependence on the aqueducts.

Also depending on the interconnection will be the Town of Marlborough, which gets its water through the Town of Newburgh.

While the Delaware Aqueduct is shut down, the Catskill Aqueduct will be used to bring more water to New York City.

So before the Delaware project begins in earnest, a $138 million project is planned to improve the Catskill's capacity, including removing a film that has built up in the tunnel over the years.

Two 10-week shutdowns, in 2016 and 2017, will be needed during that project.

That will require some towns, including New Paltz (see accompanying story) and New Windsor to have backups.

But some other customers that tap the aqueduct, such as Cornwall-on-Hudson in Orange County and the High Falls area of Marbletown in Ulster County, have sufficient alternate supplies, including wells, already.

And before either of those projects happen, an announcement of the start of work on the third one is expected to come this week — an interconnection between the Catskill and Delaware aqueducts in the Town of Gardiner in Ulster County.

The city's Water Board said in December 2012 it would cost about $21 million to construct.

That project, which should be completed in the summer of 2015, will allow the DEP to mix in water from the Delaware to reduce the turbidity of water from the Catskill — which is often a problem after major storms and has caused lengthy shutdowns in the past.

The projects also will mean jobs which Bosch said will go to local union workers — 200 on the Delaware project and 70 on the cross-connection between the two aqueducts. There is no estimate yet on the number of jobs the Catskill project will create.

While details are still being worked out, officials seem confident that things will fall into place by the time work is set to start on each project.

"There's plenty of time," James Osborne, the Town of Newburgh's engineer, said Friday.